Episode 565 (11th May 1966)
Plot Ruth starts a whist drive at the Mission. Jerry tells her how much he admires the work she does. Ena agrees to look at a council flat. Ruth asks Jerry to help her show Ena over it. Elsie finds it hard coping with Wally's dirty habits. He agrees to take the Barlow twins out but makes Val uneasy when he flirts with her. Len is suspicious when Jerry goes out in his best suit. The whist drive is a success though Annie has no partner and ends up playing with Wally. Stan suggests a men's night out to Jack and Len. Ruth and Jerry show Ena the flat which is on the 11th floor of a tower block on Navigation Street. Ena says she'd rather sleep in a bus shelter and refuses it. Annie and Wally beat Minnie and Hilda when Minnie forgets which suit she should be playing. Elsie is fed up of Wally's pigeons in the yard. Wally presents her with the basket of fruit he won at the whist drive. Wally entertains Minnie to an intimate twosome, using up all of Elsie's spare food. Jerry has an idea as to how to solve Ena's housing problem. Annie hands out the sweets she won at the whist drive but they taste awful. The residents are surprised when Ruth drinks bitter in the Rovers. Elsie is not pleased to see that Len is taken with her. A horrified Len returns home to find that Jerry has moved Ena in as their resident housekeeper. Cast Regular cast *Jerry Booth - Graham Haberfield *Minnie Caldwell - Margot Bryant *Elsie Tanner - Patricia Phoenix *Valerie Barlow - Anne Reid *Len Fairclough - Peter Adamson *Annie Walker - Doris Speed *Hilda Ogden - Jean Alexander *Stan Ogden - Bernard Youens *Jack Walker - Arthur Leslie *Ena Sharples - Violet Carson Guest cast *Ruth Winter - Colette O'Neil *Wally Tanner - George Betton Places *Rovers Return Inn - Public *11 Coronation Street - Back room and kitchen *Glad Tidings Mission Hall - Main hall *15 Mawdsley Street - Back room *Navigation Street and 11th floor flat balcony Notes taken during this episode's location shoot]] *The location filming for the Navigation Street flat was carried out at Clifford Court, Clayton Close in Hulme, Manchester. The same block of flats was used three years later for the camera position for the programme's third title sequence, pointing at the next door Grafton Court. The location filming produced an iconic publicity shot (right) which has become famous and reproduced numerous times, including on the back of H.V. Kershaw's 1981 autobiography On The Street Where I Live and as a mural at both Granada Television's Quay Street site and the MediaCity studios. Often incorrectly dated to 1968, it was acclaimed as "one of the greatest photographs of an English actor" by writer and actor Mark Gatiss in 2011. *This episode carried only a credit for director Walter Butler. *''TV Times'' synopsis: Ena finds a new home and the Tanners get a lodger *Viewing Figures: First UK broadcast - 8,450,000 homes (2nd place). Notable dialogue Ruth Winter: "Look down there, Mrs Sharples. The whole world is changing. They're pulling it down. Some day everybody will have to be re-housed. Coronation Street will be down and all the other streets like it." Ena Sharples: "Aye, but I'll be in my little wooden box by then. Look, living as high as this is alright for millionaires and sparrows but not for me." Category:1966 episodes